The presence of the Camera Labs logo with a banner ad to the right of it is causing all the pages to stretch out very wide, wider than the 800 pixel resolution that my screen is set at. There are still a lot of people who don't like squinting at their screens who are using the 800 x 600 resolution, so I think you should design your forum pages so that they don't stretch out beyond 800 pixels.

Good God Caleb.... you still viewing at 800x600 think that you will find that most people are viewing at a minimum of 1024x768 these days, my laptop that I use all of the time now is set at a resolution of 1440x900.

Like I said, I don't like to squint, and I don't like to have to sit close to the monitor either -- and there's nothing wrong with my eyesight.

There are still plenty of people who use the 800 x 600 resolution, and to force those people to scroll left and right constantly is just inconsiderate. All that has to be done is for the Camera Labs logo to be reduced, or the banner ad to be placed above (or below) the logo.

Please be considerate, moderators, or whoever is making the design decisions. Gordon? All this left-right scrolling wasn't necessary when I was frequenting the site a few months ago.

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At the current width we still get problems with posts which include pictures wider than the forum maximum width guideline of 700px (500px preferred). I can see that becoming more of an issue if the forum width were reduced.

Personally, I think the 955px width is a good compromise, especially as it may become very difficult to buy new monitors with less than 1024px native widths before long.

still viewing at 800x600 think that you will find that most people are viewing at a minimum of 1024x768 these days

I have mine set at high res for the finer details of photos. I can shrink the width of the window almost 1.5" if I wanted. the only time I have to scroll left or right is when a large format photo is posted.

if there in nothing wrong with your eyesight, why not just incress you res insted of having the site reformated to fit your screen

Hi Caleb, after operating the site for 800x600 displays, we decided to go for 1024x768 with our redesign launched in early December 2007. SO it's been like this now for just over two months.

According to our analytics, you are actually one of only a handful viewing at 800x600, whereas the vast majority are at 1024 or MUCH higher.

So I'm afraid we're sticking at the current width. I'm sorry this results in horizontal scrolling on all our pages - I feel your pain as the wonderful Asus Eee PC is an SVGA device - but in the words of Spock, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.

I know a thing or two about web sites, and it appears to me that these forum pages are wider than 800 pixels for just one reason: so that you can have a banner next to your logo at the top. If not for that, the pages would adjust to the widths of your visitors' screens. Why on earth would you inconvenience your visitors who have 800 x 600 screen resolutions for such a minor reason???

I have repeatedly tried to use my screen at 1024 x 768 resolution, and I find the text too small and hard to read -- even when I use large fonts (not all portions of the screen can be enlarged).

I can understand having a wide screen for a good reason, but this is ridiculous!

Hi Caleb, yes, it was an important step for us to have a banner, but the widening was also to implement aspects like the sidebar you see on all the non-forum pages.

Running this site is a full time job with regular evenings and weekends thrown-in, not to mention the overheads of running a dedicated server with lots of bandwidth, so I'm sure you appreciate the necessity for it to be a commercial viability. If it doesn't pay the bills, it simply isn't possible.

I apologise for the inconvenience this change in width has caused you, but I'm sure you really don't honestly begrudge me for trying to make a living out of this.

I've also just looked-up our exact figures and 1.71% of our readers are accessing the site with an 800x600 screen. And 0.03% of them are using anything lower - ie a mobile.

This means 98.2% of our readers can view the site width just fine, and that's not a bad percentage in my view.

How you format the other pages on your site has nothing to do with how you format the forum pages. The forum pages -- which are all text -- don't have to be set at any fixed width. HTML tables are flexible and will change their width according to the resolution of the browser, so all you have to do is to move that banner to another spot -- or reduce your logo, which is enormous.

I'll look at my video program and see if there is any way I can switch resolutions quickly and easily. If there isn't, I guess I won't be participating in your forum very much, because the necessity of constantly scrolling horizontally is very annoying -- especially when I know that it shouldn't be necessary.

And think of us that have screen with res of 1920 by 1200 it would be so small and it would be hard to manage if you find it hard to read the text at 1024 then consider buying a bigger screen. I was reading on a website the other week actually and it was talking about websites it and says that pretty much the standard should be 1024 and it is starting to go towards 1280 in the next few years.

Only problem I have is that the website doesn't center it's self in the page, I have my browser at full screen and the forums sit to the left.

I have a 16.5" screen on my laptop. the text is the standered size 12.
the form sits to the left with a gray bar on the right. All I have to do is shrink the window 1.5" and the gray bar is gone and I still dont have to scroll left or right. I don't see any problems.

I do see Marzy's point in saying that the print would get smaller as the screen size and res gets bigger.

I have to agree with and stand by Gordon.
There is only so much he can do, and he is doing alot as it is just running the site If 98.2% of the members here are happy with what he has done, and 1.71% are not, then you are out of luck.

If this means that Cameralabs is one less memeber, I am sure there will be 3 more to replace you...

I had spent the better part of a month looking at lots of forms and sites, but this one is the only one that has the members that will to go that extra mile. With that said I can and will get passed may 1.5" gray bar, and if and when I get a bigger screen I will get reading glasses. lol

in short. . . get over it or upgrade. Check out PriceGrabber for upgrades and help support the site

What a disgusting attitude you have that certain people are expendable. You must be a Republican.

I am sorry if you got the impression that I think certain people are expendable. That is not the case. Everybody here has some sort of input that is useful to someone, and I don't see mud-slinging to be one of them.

I am not a web-designer and have know idea what it takes to set this site up and keep it running, but Gordon seems to have it down, and thus has his reasoning for what he does.

but, YOU said

Quote:

I won't be participating in your forum very much

. If you don't wish to participate because your not happy, then I am sorry for Gordon's loss of a member.

I know that at the start you were just sugesting that he shrink the banner,
but that is not how it came off. You made it seem as tho he had done this to inconvenience you and a lot of other members, and I am sure that was/is not the case.